<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Loki's Brood by firecat</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27521407">Loki's Brood</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/firecat/pseuds/firecat'>firecat</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Norse Religion &amp; Lore</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, God(dess) of Death, Parenthood, Snakes, Time Loop, Wolves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-08 05:27:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>674</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27521407</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/firecat/pseuds/firecat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki meets with Angrboða and their children, Jörmungandr, Hel, and Fenrir.</p><p>In the Gylfaginning, the story is told that Odin heard prophecies about Loki's &amp; Angrboða's children, Jörmungandr, Hel, and Fenrir. He sent for them in an attempt to avoid the fate the prophecies decreed.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Fic In A Box</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Loki's Brood</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stefanyeah/gifts">Stefanyeah</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hope you enjoy this little treat!</p><p>Inspired in part by the painting <i>Lokis Gezücht</i> (Loki's Brood) by Emil Doepler</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lokis_Gez%C3%BCcht.jpg">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lokis_Gezücht.jpg</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Loki approaches the cave, glowing within from the heat of something deep inside the earth.</p><p>Loki does not look forward to this meeting. However often he arrives at this point, he never wants it to come. For all that he loves creating chaos, he dislikes change. Especially change that isn’t of his own making. He dislikes <i>time.</i></p><p>He hasn’t figured out what to do about that yet.</p><p>Angrboða sits in the mouth of the cave, her long black hair cascading down her back, her staff in her hand. </p><p>She is regal, and fearsome, and ugly. Loki likes all of those aspects of her. So much sweeter to woo, she was, with the bitter flavor of rejection on her. Her sharp tongue, slashing away at him during their courtship, demanding that he prove his desire for her, defying him to do so. </p><p>He wishes it could have lasted longer, their gnarled, irascible romance. </p><p>“Why have you called me, mother of our children?” asks Loki.</p><p>Snakelets dance at Angrboða’s feet. When did Jörmungandr grow up, old enough to have snakelets of his own? And when, in the name of the Yggdrasil, had he grown to be 100 feet long? </p><p>Time slips away from you, when you are a trickster God. When you must spend the first several hours of each night remembering to yourself all the schemes you’re involved in, lest one of the twisted tendrils snag, and you end up bound inside the Earth, with a snake hovering over your face.  </p><p>It’s not yet time for the Ragnarok. Not time for the end of time. There is still mischief to be done, before things get deadly serious. But time is hurrying on faster than Loki wishes.</p><p>As usual. </p><p>Angrboða shifts uncomfortably on her seat at the mouth of the cave. “Odin is demanding we bring our children before him, Loki. I fear he does not mean well by them.”</p><p>Loki takes a moment to gaze upon each of his children.</p><p>Jörmungandr opens his mouth and displays his venomous fangs and his forked tongue to his father. It is a challenge, but a respectful one. His body is twisted and bulges along its length. Loki wonders what he might have ingested to cause those bulges. </p><p>“My serpent son,” Loki says. He experiences the emotion that some call affection. It is strange to him. </p><p>Jörmungandr hisses a greeting, and the sound surrounds the mouth of the cave, for a moment blocking out knowledge of the world beyond.</p><p>Within Jörmungandr’s loops and coils crouches Hel. She resembles her mother—the long, dark hair, the challenging black eye. But she still looks like a girl just barely old enough to be wed, ripe and fertile, her face still filled out with the roundness of youth. She wears the white shift of a girl yet untouched.</p><p>Loki knows the truth—she is no maiden. Odin has not yet decreed it, but she is soon to preside over her Halls, where half of the human dead dwell, and her kiss will be an invitation to those Halls. </p><p>And Fenrir. Loki’s favorite son. </p><p>The apotheosis of wolves gazes at him with soft eyes, open mouth, panting tongue. He wriggles his body slightly. Loki remembers running with him in the forest Ironwood, hunting all manner of creatures, glorying in the thrill of it. </p><p>Loki experiences the emotion that some call pride. Not pride in oneself. Loki has that in abundance. But parental pride, in one Loki had a role in bringing into the world, but who walks his own path. </p><p>Loki has lived through Ragnarok a thousand times. He knows Fenrir will share his fate, chained until the spasm that breaks apart the world.</p><p>He prefers to remember the happier moments. </p><p>“You are right, mother of our children,” he tells Angrboða. “Odin does not mean well by them. Nevertheless, it will happen. We cannot yet defy the circle of time.”</p><p>There will be a thousand iterations more, and ten thousand. Loki may yet learn to break the chains that bind him to it.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>